Sowing indoors is pretty easy – you've got lots of control over the environment so essentially, less can go wrong. But propagating space is limited, all that watering takes up precious time and you get far stockier plants if you sow outside. Plus, crops like carrots, parsnips and other roots fare much better if sown direct. Luckily, warmer weather means that more of us will ditch our windowsills and venture outdoors with those seed packets, but how do you guarantee success when there are so many potential pitfalls out there? Here are a few tips:

Create the perfect seedbed

This is crucial if you want your seeds to germinate well. Dig over the soil to remove all weeds and allow it to settle for a few days otherwise it will slump (or, if you can't wait and provided the soil isn't wet, tread it down gently with your feet), and then rake it level, rake it some more – and then once more for good measure: you're aiming to remove all large stones and clods of earth. Work the rake in different directions to get out as many lumpy bits as possible. That way, your seeds will make perfect contact with the soil for that all important germination.

The art of sowing

One key thing to remember: the larger the seed, the deeper it can go. As a rough guide, 4cm is fine for peas and broad beans, 2cm for beetroot and chard, and for salad leaves and carrots, 1cm is ideal (seed packets will give specific depths). If the weather is dry, sow a little bit deeper than recommended as a main cause of failure is seed drying out.

Create a shallow drill (or wide trench for peas) using a trowel or the edge of a hoe, sprinkle your seed along it, backfill with soil, tamp down with the back of said rake and water in. There are variations on this theme, though, that are worth applying to different conditions:

Dry:If the soil is really dry, soak the ground thoroughly before creating your seedbed (ideally, the day beforehand) as if you water it thoroughly afterwards you run the risk of washing finer seeds away and "capping" the soil (I'll explain this in a bit). Covering the sown drill with newspaper will help prevent it drying out, but it's essential that this is removed as soon as your seedlings appear. Clear plastic cloches are more forgiving and can be left in place for a week or so (ideal if you can't get to the plot that often). Both these covers are also quite good at keeping birds and mice at bay if they're a problem on your plot.

Wet:Heavy rainfall after sowing can play havoc with your seedbed, specifically sudden downpours that cause puddles in the soil or rivulets of runoff. Both such watery conditions can cause "capping" where the soil creates a crust of very fine particles as it dries out. This can be impenetrable to seedlings that are attempting to emerge. Prevent it with cloches/newspaper covers or by filling over your drill with compost rather than soil as this won't cap. And never walk on your soil when it's wet, especially if you've dug it over, as loose, fluffy soil is very prone to compaction. If you must walk on moist soil, lay down boards to distribute your weight and walk on those.

Sowing methods

Different crops require different sowing techniques, so let me run through the main ones: The basic method is to sow thinly along your drills, sowing a little more thickly than final crop spacings to take into account losses via poor germination or pest /disease attack. For carrots, beetroot, radish, spinach and salad leaves, this is the preferred method. Once germinated and emerged, thin for a first time and then, once established and less vulnerable to attack, thin to final spacings (don't forget to eat the leaf thinnings of beetroot and radish as they're great salad additions). Some companies sell seed tapes, where paper is impregnated with seeds at their final spacings – handy if you're not too dextrous when it comes to thinning.

Certain crops, like parsnips, french beans and squashes, are grown at wide spacings, so rather than sow in a drill where there will be lots of wastage, it's best to carry out "station sowings", where four or five seeds are sown in clusters, positioning these clusters at their final spacings. Once emerged, simply thin to leave the strongest seedling. With parsnips and maincrop carrots that are sown in rows and are slow to germinate, you can intersow with quick-maturing crops like radish or salad leaves. Not only does this mark the row before the slower veg germinate, but it also makes maximum use of your space: the quick crops can mature and be harvested before the slower ones require the room. Nifty.

Those quick-maturing crops, like aforementioned salads and radish, along with beetroot, spinach, baby carrots and oriental veg should be sown successionally in short drills, so that you don't run out of fresh supplies. As a general guide, sow your next batch once the previous have germinated and thrown out two or three "true" leaves to ensure continuity of supply.

You can also "broadcast" a patch of seeds, which is a great method for sowing green manures and also for setting up a little patch of seedlings that you later transplant to their final spacings (this is an old-school technique for sowing winter brassicas, for example). Just sow as you would lawn seed, gently scattering your seed on a prepared bed and then lightly raking it over. A bit of netting over the top keeps birds away. Job done.

Lucy Halsall is Editor of Grow Your Own Magazine which contains a wealth of information about growing your own vegetables plus even more resources on the website including the new growing guides section.